Metallica Plays the Experience Music Project

June 23, 2000

Metallica spent 45-odd minutes showing people what's really important (the music) the performance (their forte) and the energy (theirs naturally). It was a vintage retort to all that forgot what they do: 'Enter Sandman' sounded angry, venomous, the result of a few extra months pent up frustration, and then 'Bells' ripped in off the back, everyone throwing their excess baggage and bullshit into the old classic. You know that James is ready to rumble, that Kirk is on the money and that Jason has a personal mission to uphold the live cause. But it has to be said that when Lars is on it, everyone is happier... and believe it, happiness was abundant at the EMP.

A brilliant twist in 'King Nothing' saw a whisper of Nirvana's 'Come As You Are' paying a natural, and well-placed, respect to one of Seattle's most important musical figures, and then came a particularly brutal 'Battery.' It all proved a couple of resounding points: that for all the gangstas on parade, none layed the physical on this audience quite like Metallica. And when it comes down to it, 25,000 people and four band members showed the world that all the Napster negativity directed towards them remains firmly a figment of media. The kidz? They didn't seem concerned to me...